Son of a Dark Wizard

Thirteen year old Prince Sorren survived the surprise attack on his castle, but the young wizard’s life is left in ruins. His father’s been assassinated, he was forced to flee his castle, and he lost his left arm. But he’s not about to lose the kingdom his father promised would someday be his. He doesn’t care if his father’s assassin is a boy believed to be the Chosen One, or if the prophecy that foretold his father’s death also calls for his own death at the same boy’s hands. He sets out in search of the boy, ready to battle him face to face.

But the Chosen One keeps a powerful weapon, and Sorren soon learns that even a dark wizard’s powers will not be enough to take his kingdom back.

Cover art by Jonas Akerlund

Pages: 143Date released: January 2015

Q: How did this book come about?

A: “Son of a Dark Wizard” actually started with the title. I was buying ice-cream at the grocery store when the title popped in my head and it excited me. I began thinking about who exactly this “son of a dark wizard” was, and what his story might be. Over the next five months I plotted out six or seven possible stories, all of them very different from each other. Some were very dark and gritty, others more humorous and light-hearted. One was actually a bit like Phantom of the Opera, with a romance at its center. But none of these plots really excited me enough, and it took a while for me to spiral in on what the story at last became. I was watching Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho when the idea for the Nyrish Council popped in my head, and it was then that the story finally started coming together.

One thing I really wanted to do with the story was to play with the common fantasy tropes of a “chosen one” and an old mysterious prophecy, but from the point of view of the bad guy, the guy who the chosen one’s supposed to kill. I had a lot of fun with that.